


Know Me Better, Man

by SandrC



Series: Balance My Deeds With My Misdeeds [33]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Merle Highchurch Fan Club Founder, Present Tense, Relationship can be either platonic or romantic, TAZ: Balance, back at it again with the Merle character studies, im not even mad tho, im not picky and I just love these old gays, look motherfuckers I love that shitty old man, sTILL DO, vaguely train of thought-esque, wverything I touch turns into a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 00:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12070269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: "They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it." cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end."(Or: Sandr waxes poetic about a gay old dwarf and his memory and his kindness)





	Know Me Better, Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ludella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludella/gifts).



> First and foremost: I will fight to the death anyone who says that Merle is not a good character. I will straight up, gladiatorial style, drag you and your ko'ed ass to Clinton McElroy himself to apologize. He is a good character. (And note I said 'character' and not 'man'. There is a distinction.)
> 
> Second: man I'm doing everything I can to apparently not work on Second Star lmao. It's started but like I keep waffling? Bleh. It'll happen eventually. Motivation is a fickle bitch.
> 
> Third: God bless John. He is so good. I'm love. Thank you based McElroy.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy this :3
> 
> This story brought to you by a disproportionate amount of CocoRosie at the wee hours of the morning. Don't do it kids, it'll fuck ya right up!!!

Sometimes, when Merle is at his lowest point, he closes his eyes and thinks about a man he once knew.

He doesn't remember the man too well—a fact he jokingly attributes to his age and penchant for the herbal remedies—but what he does remember is pleasant at best and heartbreaking at worst. He remembers a tall man, middle-aged, in a fine suit with sad eyes and a calm voice. He remembers a man who plays chess with him and talks—static and sad smiles and whispered names and insistent truth—and then raises his hand and the world fades. He remembers a man laughing and gesturing wildly as he speaks fondly about philosophy and literature and heritage. He remembers a man with salt and pepper hair nodding as he tells this man stories of people wrapped in fuzz and white noise, smiling when appropriate and solemnly patting his hand when sadness broke free.

He remembers a lot about this man but his name and his sadness remain as snow on the radio.

Sometimes, when the loneliness crawls deep in his bones, Merle remembers the gentle touch of this man. It never escalated past friendly or comforting, but the way that his own body betrays him is equal parts frustrating and terrifying. He feels a lack of warmth when he wakes after those dreams; cold patches on his arms and hands and shoulders where the man rested an assuring palm. He is missing so much and he cannot reach it and it drives him to madness.

When he can't sleep, the memories of that man too much to bear, he walks the Bureau's campus and always settles beneath the large dogwood on the quad and allows the breath of the earth beneath—and plants and roots and flowers and life—flow through him like a cleansing bath. After his arm is lost, he leans against the tree and contemplates how those touches would feel against soulwood; if that man would still look at him the same. He's older now, he surmises, and so is that man. Time works that way.

(No. No, a part of his mind veiled in a curtain of translucent fog screams. There is a difference for him. A difference you used to share. You have forgotten! But it falls on the wayside. It is lost to the tide.)

When he has a crisis of faith—why would he be a follower of Pan and yet be so fickle and live on the edge of the sea with a desire to see the tide change the horizon until his soul departs?!—he thinks about the man's pragmatic response to questions of gods and devotion. He remembers, not derisive, but objective anecdotes about gods and choice and fate and justice. He remembers the man listening to him praise Pan with all he had and then gently inquiring about the why and the how. How could your god allow bad things to happen to good people? How could your god watch as empires fell to entropy and time and war? Was that not cruel?

He remembers laughing at this. At that man and his questions. He remembers telling him questioning faith makes a good follower. That bad things happen because they do. That omniscience does not equate puppeteering all of reality. That love is setting free and letting live. He remembers the man raising his hand and saying that he didn't understand. He remembers forgiving him for not understanding him.

When wonderland comes and goes, taking with him his holy magic and his eye and memories and items and health and his companion, he remembers the man ranting about the rules that govern reality. About the fury and fervor that he embodied as he paced about and yelled about what was 'fair' and what was 'right' and what was 'good'. How they never overlapped. How reality was a cruel being who delighted in pain and suffering.

But he also remembers the games of chess—as often lost as won—filled with idle and friendly chatter. With names that faded into whispers and stories told with mirth and fondness. He remembers the sadness in the man's eyes when Merle, for a reason as untouchable as the steam of a cool morning touched by the sunrise, swore angrily at him. As Merle never saw him again. As Merle left with a weight in his chest that screamed for attention but refused to be investigated.

And in the reveal and the remembering, he has a name and a face and a reason and a purpose. That man was John, the Hunger, devourer of planes of reality and eternal enemy of all existence. That man was his friend, even if he didn't know it. That man shaped so much of what Merle was and, when Lucretia took that—though he won't fault her for fear and desperation ruling her actions and inducing myopia—he was hollow and incomplete. The kindness that man, John, had nurtured within him was stripped away and all that was left was longing, faith, and a crooked sense of self-worth. Like a funhouse mirror he was a warped reflection of the truth.

So when John summons him, broken and hurting and writhing with cracks of the Hunger that now owned him, and greets him like an old friend, Merle is content.

Forgiveness is hard but, if he can forgive John, he can forgive himself.

And they play chess again, talking about the decade they haven't been in contact—never mind the quarter century of radio silence before that—and sharing a sense of joy. Joy that has, for so long, eluded Merle.

(He tries to save him. He thinks about summoning him with the Bond Engine. He thinks about having Barry call him up so they can talk. So they can at least have resolution. He does none of those things because he realizes that that would be cruel. So he waits for sunrise, patiently, quietly, and doing all he can to be better.)

(And when he dreams of John, remembers fondly their time together, he smiles because the veil is parted and he can see him for the first time in a decade.)

(And when death comes, softly and with the grace of a good friend, a smile on its face, arms outstretched, Merle takes its hands and follows. And John greets him with a smile and hearty laugh. And he has come to know him better. He is complete.)

(He is so full of joy.)


End file.
